Let’s discover Città Sant’Angelo
Nestled in the hills and a short distance from the sea, Città Sant’Angelo is a charming village that has so much to tell and to offer. Fully inserted among “The most beautiful villages in Italy”, it manages to combine art, history, tradition and good food. In 2018, the US magazine Forbes even included it among the 10 best places in the world to go and live, calling it “a corner of paradise, the best kept secret in Italy”. It hosts numerous cultural events of great appeal and is also a city of wine and oil, a slow city, a green city.
Its origins, although uncertain and a reason for debate among scholars, seem to date back to the Vestini era even if the first official act dates back to 13 October 875, where the presence of a castle and a port is remembered. Today’s Città Sant’Angelo was rebuilt from scratch in the 13th century, as appears from the typically medieval layout of the urban fabric. The heart of Città Sant’Angelo is the historic center, where it is possible to take pleasant walks among its characteristic streets (called “ruve”, rue). The village is rich in architectural and cultural works of a certain prestige just waiting to be discovered.
The symbolic monument of the town is undoubtedly the Collegiate Church of San Michele Arcangelo, a unique architectural and artistic jewel in Abruzzo. Baroque in style, it was built before the year 1000 but owes its current appearance to the reconstruction of the thirteenth century. The majestic building consists of two naves and is completed by a valuable fifteenth-century portico. Inside are preserved precious treasures such as the polychrome wooden statue of San Michele from the fourteenth century, the carved wooden choir made by the Angolan cabinetmaker Giuseppe Monti in the seventeenth century and the fifteenth-century sarcophagus of the bishop Amico Bonamicizia.
Religious architecture is a peculiarity of the village. In addition to the Collegiate Church of San Michele Arcangelo, the following are also worth a visit: the Church of San Francesco d’Assisi, with its magnificent fourteenth-century polychrome portal, attributed to Raimondo di Poggio; the Church of Santa Chiara, which stands out for the magnificence of the stuccos and gilding; the Church of Sant’Agostino, characterized by a striking facade, spaced by four pilasters; and the Chapel of Villa Serena, created by the artist Ettore Spalletti.
There are also museums, among which the Laboratory Museum of Contemporary Art stands out, housed in the former Tobacco Factory. Even before being an exhibition space, it is a place of experimentation and research for all possible expressions of contemporary visual art. It houses an extraordinary collection of works by important national and international artists of the caliber of Romano Bertuzzi, Miguel Cardenas and Katja Tukiainen, just to name a few. Instead, inside the former Church of San Salvatore, the “Luigi Chiavetta” Civic Museum has been set up, where you can admire archaeological finds found in the Angolan territory and an important collection of “chinocchje”, a type of devotional statues made of wood. and adorned with embroidered dresses, wigs and jewels.
Among the other things to see are: the large nineteenth-century rainwater collection tank (called cisternone) which is located under the Municipal Garden; the Clock Tower located in the former Palazzo Pachetti; and the ancient gates of access to the village, Porta Casale and Porta Licinia (or Borea) dating back to the fourteenth century and Porta Sant’Egidio and Porta Sant’Antonio (or Nuova) built between 1700 and 1800.
As for food and wine, the area offers a wide range of excellent products, from Aprutino Pescarese DOP extra virgin olive oil to Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC wine. Among the typical dishes we advise you to try: pasta alla mugnaia, obtained from a mix of durum wheat and soft wheat flour with eggs; and lamb cace e ove, cooked in a pan and enriched with a delicious cheese and egg sauce.
